


Wake us, and we drown

by keysmash



Series: Supernatural s5 Codas [31]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_30snapshots, Episode Related, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time for you and time for me,<br/>And time yet for a hundred indecisions,<br/>And for a hundred visions and revisions</p><p>from T.S. Eliot's "<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html">The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock</a>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake us, and we drown

**Author's Note:**

> Swan Song coda. Written for prompt 30 (!) of my [](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_30snapshots/profile)[**spn_30snapshots**](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_30snapshots/) [table](http://latentfunction.livejournal.com/349450.html); previous codas are also linked in that post. Title from T.S. Eliot.

Lisa asked if he wanted anything to drink, while she served up plates, and Dean seriously did, christ. She pointed to the top pantry shelf, and he poured as much as usual. He didn't realize until later, after Ben barreled in and grabbed him around the waist, that he'd poured an awful stiff drink. Lisa glanced at it as she sat down, and so he left half of it untouched, getting some water instead.

"Your mom told me you're playing softball this season," Dean said, forking up a bite of pot roast. Pot roast. It was fucking picturesque.

"Baseball," she corrected.

"Baseball," Dean said, smiling at Ben. Ben grinned back.

"It was softball up until last year," he said. "I wasn't old enough yet."

"Exciting to move up?"

Ben nodded. Dean had dealt with family dinners before, but always to spin some story while he ate, and most of the time, someone was working the table with him — sometimes Dad, but usually Sam. Almost always Sam. He didn't know how to do this alone any more than he knew how to tell the truth.

"I always liked baseball," Dean said, figuring he'd start there. "My dad, too."

Lisa gave him another look, but Ben took off from there, talking about his most recent game. Dean nodded along, and when they'd all cleaned their plates, he had Ben take care of the dishes with him. Lisa put her feet up in Ben's chair, and he ran off to the living room once she said it was clean enough, so she and Dean were alone.

"You've been watching it, you know?" She glanced at the glass. "You can finish it if you want."

"Nah, I just poured too much." Dean put the glass into the sink, and she nodded to the living room.

"Come read with us," she said.

"Lemme dry my hands," he said, holding them up. She kissed him on the cheek on her way out of the room. Dean picked the glass up and swigged it, then rinsed out his mouth, before following her.

Reading apparently meant individually. Dean picked a book from the shelf and settled into an armchair, next to Ben and Lisa on the couch. He guessed Ben was too old to be read to, but he'd read to Sam on the road, until Dad got the truck. Usually lore, but sometimes not. They went through Tolkien one summer, skipping the singing, with each of them stretched out as far as possible. Dean didn't know when other kids outgrew that. He only knew what Sammy did.

"He's a good kid," he said, after Ben went to bed. Lisa nodded, and Dean put his book down, glancing towards the door. "I should get out of your hair."

"No." She shook her head. "We do need to talk, but, just stay, for a while." She forced a grin. "No offense, but you look like you could use some sleep."

He laughed. "Some's an understatement."

Her bedroom looked the same as years ago, with a mattress on the floor, piled under bright blankets, and the rest of the room white and empty. Like an art gallery, she'd said, and Dean tried to think of only that first night when he closed his hands around her shoulders and kissed her.

It didn't work. The last person to touch him this way had been Sam, and the last time Sam touched him, it was actually someone else working his hands, and then Sam had gone tumbling down into Hell with the only other blood Dean had in this world. He shook his head and pulled away from Lisa.

"You did say I looked tired," he said, not meeting her eyes.

She was silent for a moment, then leaned to kiss his forehead. Dean squeezed his eyes shut. "We should talk first anyway. Sleep."

He nodded, but he was still awake, two hours later. And at four, and six, and eventually he climbed out of bed and pulled his pants on again.

The car was just where he left her. Dean climbed in and scooted over, into shotgun. Dean had sat here before, plenty: eldest's right, when they were young, and while he taught Sam to drive, and later, when Sam was old enough for his own shifts behind the wheel, spelling Dean through injury or exhaustion. Other people had ridden here, too: Dad and Cas and Bobby, sure, and bunches of Dean's hook-ups, and probably Ruby, when Dean hadn't been there to do anything about it. Hell, Dean remembered sitting in the back while their mom rode here, her hair falling in waves down the back of the seat. The seat itself was nothing special. It didn't have anyone's name on it.

But it was still Sam's. This was where Sammy should be, not anywhere else. Sam had pulled it together at the end, proved Dean's entire life worthwhile, and Dean hadn't even been able to stick with him the entire way. If Sam was going to be locked in the dark forever and ever, then it shouldn't have been Adam falling with him. It should have been Dean. It should have been Dean, too.

Lisa came out at sunrise, in a bathrobe. She opened the driver's door and raised her eyebrows at him. "May I?"

He patted the upholstery and she slid in. "Couldn't sleep," he said. "Sorry."

"I thought you'd left," she said.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and looked down.

She put her hand on his arm. "What's the matter? Are you alright?"

He laughed and shook his head. "Pretty sure I'm not."

Lisa sighed. Eventually she shifted to take his hand, and he let her. "Where's your brother, Dean?" she asked, finally.

Dean shook his head and looked at her. "He's somewhere else." Her face changed, like she was going to say something. He shook his head again and she didn't, but he glanced away regardless.

"Hey," he said, looking over her shoulder, "you know your streetlight's out?"


End file.
